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Is It Time To Go 1787 on Academia?

Over the last few weeks, colleges like Emory have declared that, like sanctuary cities, they will become safe havens for illegal aliens; thus, providing cover for illegals to avert federal law enforcement agencies and continue to live in America. One thing academia seems to forget is, unless they’re private institutions (and even then there’s still some gray areas) they depend on federal monies to fill their already overflowing coffers. Like those cities, is it time to cut the proverbial fiscal cord and let them dangle in the wind? Perhaps they should look to their on-staff historians (professors) for counsel about just what’s in that crazy ruling document we also call the United States Constitution.

As it seems, Academia has now joined the mayhem of immigration enforcement on the premise they promote the “dreamers.” Well, there were dreamers in the 1890s whom immigrated legally to the US through Ellis Island. They did so because they wanted to escape oppression, bad economies and other plights; however, they didn’t seek entrance through any back doors.

Contrary to modern day illegal aliens, they got on the boat (legally,) crossed the Atlantic (legally,) and went through the rigors of Ellis (again, legally) to gain citizenship. Hence, the word legal is the key component here that many liberals seems to ignore in their cries against the big bad immigration situation, which is law in our country.

A week or so back, I referred to the fact that the federal government is not obligated to pay out monies to any other entity other than the Military and United States Postal Service. One of my commenters further backed up my claim, citing the Tenth Amendment. Yes, it is true and academia is now treading in very dangerous territory. Hard to help dreamers when you have no cash to back up the high rhetoric.

Perhaps it’s time for us to revisit the notion of state autonomy and apply it to the Academic world as well. Given the high tuitions for educations that seem to be of little use to the Snowflake crowd as they work their Starbucks’ jobs and live in the basement due to high cost of living and no real jobs available, yet colleges still teach courses like Gender Studies where a person needs to gain a PhD to get a ‘real job.’ Not only does this provide a generation of Peter Pans no bankable skills, it leaves them ensconced in debt – they cannot afford to pay off working even $15.00 per hour jobs.

Academic foundations are found to be some of the richest out there, so where’s all this federal grant money going? Ironically, much of their money goes to research – but where has all this ‘research’ gotten us? Are their cures for cancer, diabetes, MS, or Alzheimers that we’re unaware of? Unfortunately, for all this wasted cash, we haven’t seen where research in the breeding habits of fruit flies has helped cure any of America’s economic ills.

Let’s face it, a lot of this so-called research isn’t doing much in the furtherance of our society and its well-being; so why do we continue to fund such fruitless efforts? Is it to put another PhD in a tenured position so he/she can teach absolutely nothing to future generations while expounding platitudes about their personal politics?

When is enough, enough? Now with a $19T debt that we can never possibly pay off, can we afford these Social Justice Warriors to continue their big talk/no action unless it violates federal laws? The fact these colleges would directly challenge the hand that feeds is quite stunning and, frankly, short-sighted on their lot. Perhaps it’s time for the first lesson Snowflakes should learn is that we have laws in this country and they must be obeyed: being a good contributing citizen of their community rather than a criminal!